Click HERE to enlarge THE NEW YORKER: When the last American soldiers left Iraq, at the end of 2011, the bloody civil war between the country’s Sunni and Shiite sects had been stifled but not resolved. Now the sectarian violence had returned, with terrifying intensity. For more than a year, thousands of Iraqis, nearly all of them members of the Sunni Arab minority, had been gathering to rail against Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government. Although the protests were mostly peaceful, security forces responded harshly, detaining thousands of Sunni men without charges and, in one encampment, touching off a spasm of violence that […]
MONKEY BUSINESS: Can A Chimp Sue Its Owner?
NEW YORK TIMES: It has been only in the last 30 years or so that a distinct field of animal law — that is laws and legal theory expressly for and about nonhuman animals — has emerged. When Steven Wise taught his first animal-law class in 1990 at Vermont Law School, he knew of only two others of its kind in the country. Today there are well over a hundred. Yet while animal-welfare laws and endangered-species statutes now abound, the primary thrust of such legislation remains the regulation of our various uses and abuses of animals, including food production, […]
CINEMA: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Slint But Were Too In Utero To Ask
Trailer for Lance Bangs’ (Jackass, Thunder Ant) documentary about the then-tender-aged Louisville math-rock mystics known as Slint. The band’s 1991 masterwork Spiderland is the alpha and omega of indie-rock. It says the unsayable, it speaks the unspeakable. It is the first thing enlightened people reach for when fleeing a burning building or sinking ship. It is the last thing the astronauts left on the moon, which is why the moon has been off limits ever since*. The re-activated Slint will be playing Spiderland in its entirety at Union Transfer on Thursday May 1st. I pity the fool that misses […]
INCOMING: The Kids Are Still Alright
At The Merriam Theater June 8th. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM. CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND: Despite its close proximity [to SNL], the Lorne Michaels-produced Canadian sketch comedy series broke far more ground, relying less on pop culture or topical impersonations and more on social anxieties revolving around subjects like sexuality, gender, faith, the workplace, and family. Sometimes it was flat-out stupid (McKinney’s Chicken Lady), often it was scandalous (Thompson’s Buddy Cole), and every now and then it cracked into the nonsensical (30 Helens).Most of the time, the five disguised themselves in drag, poking fun at stereotypes and […]
ROCK THE CASBAH: ‘Illegal’ Iranian Pop Singer Allowed To Give Four Concerts In Tehran
NEW YORK TIMES: In less than 15 minutes, Xaniar Khosravi, 29, an Iranian-Kurdish performer whose upbeat music was long deemed by Iran’s powerful Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture as illegal for being too Western, would step onto a stage before thousands of fans for his second official concert ever (the first was the night before). […] Hundreds of boys wearing baseball caps and girls covered with brightly colored head scarves waited excitedly in front of the concert hall, having been dropped off by parents who in all likelihood also shelled out the $20 cost of a ticket. Chewing gum […]
KING KHAN & THE SHRINES: Born To Die
King Khan & The Shrines play TLA on June 5th with Red Mass and Vomit Squad. You have been warned. ALL MUSIC GUIDE: Brewing up a heady mixture of high-spirited rhythm & blues, real-gone psychedelia and middle-finger-flipping garage rock, King Khan has earned an international reputation as one of the wildest showmen in underground rock. MORE
THE ROOTS: Tomorrow
New track featuring R&B singer Raheem DeVaughn, from their forthcoming album …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin [pictured, above]. Due May 13th on Def Jam. ROLLING STONE: …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin will be the Roots’ 11th studio album (aside from collaborative projects) and their first since 2011’s Undun. The record is due for release on May 13th through Def Jam. Shortly after the new album comes out, the Tonight Show house band is hosting their annual Roots Picnic at the Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia on May 31st. The group will be playing a set on their […]
SIDEWALKING: Aftermath
Tornado aftermath, Woodhaven, Long Island, 1895 via American Museum Of Natural History
BEING THERE: M.I.A. @ The Tower
Photo NOAH SILVESTRY It’s still hard out there for a pimp, and these days everybody’s a pimpin’ somethin’. (That’s right, I’m droppin’ my ‘g’s like Obama at the NAACP. Peace out. [I’m bringing it back, OK?]) These are especially hard days for Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A. Dissed routinely by ex-BF/collaborator Diplo, litigiously uncoupled from her billionaire baby-daddy Benjamin Bronfman, publicly scourged by Lynn Hirschberg in a New York Times Sunday Magazine takedown for ordering truffle-flavored French fries while talking radical chic, and sued by the NFL for a cool $16.6 million for flipping America the bird at half time […]
JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS: Legalize Marijuana
TIME: John Paul Stevens, the third-longest serving justice in Supreme Court history, speaks out in favor of marijuana legalization. The federal government should legalize marijuana, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens told NPR’s Scott Simpson on Thursday. The 94-year-old former justice compared federal laws prohibiting marijuana to alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s. “I really think that that’s another instance of public opinion [that’s] changed,” Stevens said. “And recognize that the distinction between marijuana and alcoholic beverages is really not much of a distinction.” Stevens, the third-longest serving Justice in Supreme Court history, is currently on […]
Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom Meets Mr. Pharmacist
The Pharmacy Radio Ep 21 – Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 / Spectrum / E.A.R . by Mr.Pharmacist on Mixcloud Mr. Pharmacist, FYI, is Philly ex-pat, former Delta 72 frontman, Making Time DJ alum, and current Cat Power sideman Gregg Foreman. Sonic Boom is high, probably. PREVIOUSLY: FOR ALL THE F*CKED UP CHILDREN OF THE WORLD, WE GIVE YOU: A Q&A With Sonic Boom Of Spaceman 3/Spectrum/E.A.R. PREVIOUSLY: The Rebirth Of Cool
Cliven Bundy Is The Exploding Racist Cigar That Just Went Off In The Tea Party’s Mouth
CLIVEN BUNDY: “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids—and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch—they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” […]
Freed Vice Correspondent Discusses His Detention
VICE NEWS: On Thursday, armed gunmen who held me prisoner for three nights and three days released me into the streets of Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine. My release was as unexplained as my capture. On Monday night I was pulled out of a car at a checkpoint, then blindfolded, beaten, and tied up with tape. After spending hours alone on the floor of a damp cell with my hands tied behind my back and a hat pulled over my eyes, I was led into a room where I was accused of working for the CIA, FBI, and Right Sector, the […]